All I Could Do
by Sebe
Summary: Sam walked into hell and got his brother out. Broken!Sam powers!Sam


Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural

Synopsis: AU post-season 3 finale. Damage abounds. Powers!Sam. Sam walked into hell and brought his brother back. He took away what pain from him that he could, but the pain had to go somewhere.

**All I Could Do**

"Why don't I have nightmares Sammy?" Dean asks one day three weeks after. He looks to his brother, huddled fading and thin at the corner of the window. "Why don't I have nightmares," he licks his lips "And why do you?"

Dean can see his brother shift, shoulders dropping down a bit and his brow pinched. Sam is all raw nerves now, so much that Dean's afraid to touch him. He's afraid to hurt him _hurt them_. Because both of them feel skinned, but Dean's sure, oh so sure_,_ that he shouldn't be as okay as he is. Hell doesn't leave you 'okay'.

"Sammy." And he winces, like the breath of the words hurt him.

"I don't-" Dean can't take another denial.

"Sam!"

And the younger curls up then, hands covering his ears and makes this sound, this soft god awful sound in his throat that is all __ and Dean's right there, hands hovering so close in desperation to touch, to feel that Sam's here and whole.

Dean aches to tell Sam that it's fine and they're okay and Bobby's upstairs and there'll be pancakes in a few hours and that every badhorriblewretched thing that they'd been through was a lie.

"…I couldn't stop it…" Sam's rocking just a bit, still curled tight. "I couldn't…took me too long…any time's too long. But I remembered." His brother's voice, the one he remembers from a thousand different pleas for a bedtime story, and a thousand arguments and conversations in a thousand different towns and times, is more…right now; more Sam.

"I remembered and I went and got you." Sam's sitting back and Dean slowly wraps his hand around his brother's wrist. They both wince, but neither move. "Every way was different and I know it was endless…" Sam leans back and Dean leans forward so the older's shoulder is pressed to Sam's back. "I know there were demons and clouds and I…I burned them all. I didn't even think about it." Sam turns, curls more toward his brother.

"I knew where you were and I didn't stop, didn't think, I just…went" Dean closes his eyes, tries to remember the pain and the fire and the certain prayers for death. But the only memory that surfaces is of his blood-drenched baby brother walking toward him in certainty. The power from his sibling, Dean could feel it everywhere. All cold fury and hate and spider-web-fragile sanity. All love and relief and grief, but only for him and it only fueled that power.

"I got you and we got out and I'm so sorry Dean." Sam keened and the pure misery of it tore Dean's heart. "It took so long and it never should have happened and I'm just…so damned _sorry_."

Dean wrenched Sam to him and held him tighttighttight against him even through the pain-wrenched sobs and heart-wrending apologies. He tried to cover his brother, pull that impossibly tall frame down and shield him from everything good and evil. Tear the world away until it was just them and then Bobby and a spring day barbeque beside the car that had always been home. No sulfur or copper and iron, just leather and wind and gun oil.

Dean's grief caught in his throat and stayed there as he held Sam and realized he was clinging to his sibling just as desperately as Sam was to him. The pain of the touch nothing in the face of desperate _need._

"Sam." Dean breathed out, shaky but calm. Tears streamed down his face, but he needed to know. "Sammy, why don't I have nightmares?"

Another harsh sob that seemed to take all the breath from his lungs. Slowly, so slowly, Sam raised his hands to rest on Dean's arm that crossed his chest and wound his fingers in the fabric so that they would never be able to escape.

"Because…" Dean felt the power in Sam's shredded voice and he felt no fear, no inclination to do anything but pull his brother impossibly closer. "It was the only thing I could do for you…" Sam begging him to understand, to forgive him. Sam laughed, the sound tearing out of his chest long and hard; dissolving into half-sobs and pleas and the occasional mad giggle. _Sorrysorrysosorrydean…godsorry._

Sam had broken his mind and body, broken himself and found a way to walk into hell and back out again with his brother in tow. Sam had given everything for Dean, but when Dean told him that, whisper-screamed it fervently into his sibling's ear, all he would say is that it's what Dean had done for Sam his entire life.

And he would_ never_ be sorry.


End file.
